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Yes. A straight flush is the second-strongest hand in poker and four of a kind is the third, so the straight flush wins — even the lowest one, five-high, beats four aces. It feels wrong because quads look more impressive and because most players have held four of a kind while very few have held a straight flush, but the ranking follows rarity rather than drama: a straight flush turns up about once in 3,591 hands against once in 595 for quads. Put them against each other below.
What beats four of a kind — the complete list is two hands long
Why the lowest straight flush still beats four aces
The Hold'em frequencies behind the order
What beats what
Rank 2 of 10
Five in a row, same suit
Rank 3 of 10
Four cards of one rank
Straight Flush beats Four of a Kind. The stronger hand class always wins, whatever the cards inside it are.
The list is two hands long. Below quads there are six more classes, none of which can beat them.
#
1
Hand
Royal flush
Example
A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ T♠
How often
0.0032%
Beats quads?
Yes
#
2
Hand
Straight flush
Example
9♥ 8♥ 7♥ 6♥ 5♥
How often
0.0279%
Beats quads?
Yes
#
3
Hand
Four of a kind
Example
Q♠ Q♥ Q♦ Q♣ 7♠
How often
0.168%
Beats quads?
—
#
4
Hand
Full house
Example
J♠ J♥ J♦ 4♠ 4♣
How often
2.60%
Beats quads?
No
#
5
Hand
Flush
Example
A♦ J♦ 8♦ 5♦ 3♦
How often
3.03%
Beats quads?
No
Class beats class in Texas Hold'em, so the weakest version of a higher hand still beats the strongest version of a lower one. Both rows below are real outcomes.
Hand A
5♥ 4♥ 3♥ 2♥ A♥ — the steel wheel
Hand B
A♠ A♥ A♦ A♣ K♠ — four aces
Winner
The steel wheel
Why
The lowest straight flush is still a straight flush
Hand A
9♣ 8♣ 7♣ 6♣ 5♣
Hand B
2♠ 2♥ 2♦ 2♣ 9♠
Winner
The straight flush
Why
Second class beats third
Hand A
K♦ Q♦ J♦ T♦ 9♦
Hand B
A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ T♠ — a royal
Winner
The royal
Why
The royal is the ace-high straight flush
A straight flush beats four of a kind. The order at the top of the ranking is royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind — and a higher class always beats a lower one regardless of the cards inside it. Five-four-three-two-ace of one suit, the weakest straight flush there is, beats four aces with a king kicker.
Four of a kind looks like the bigger hand. Four aces is four of the same card; a straight flush is five ordinary cards that happen to line up. But the ranking is built from how often each hand is the best five cards you can make out of seven, and by that measure quads are roughly six times more common. Most players have held four of a kind at some point and very few have held a straight flush, which is exactly the ordering the chart is describing.
Two hands, and that is the whole list: a straight flush and a royal flush. Since a royal flush is simply the highest straight flush, one sentence covers it — quads lose only to five suited cards in a row. Everything else in the deck loses to them, including a full house, however big, and the nut flush.
For this to happen at all, one player needs a straight flush and another needs four of a kind in the same hand, which requires a board doing two very specific things at once. In a weekly home game it is a hand you might see once, tell people about for years, and never see again. The practical relevance of knowing the order is not that you will be in the spot; it is that somebody will claim the opposite at your table and be sure about it.
On any board without three suited cards in sequence, four of a kind cannot be beaten. That covers the overwhelming majority of boards, which is why quads play as the nuts almost every time. Bet them for value against anything that will call, and give the possibility of a straight flush the attention it actually deserves — which, on a board of 9♠ 9♥ 9♦ 4♣ 2♠, is none at all.
A paired board that also has three suited connected cards is the rare texture where both hands are live: something like 7♥ 6♥ 5♥ 5♠ 5♦. There, four fives is a real hand and 9♥ 8♥ or 8♥ 4♥ is a real hand, and the money is going in. If you are holding quads on that board and a passive player raises you twice, the sensible move is to notice — not necessarily to fold, but to notice.
By the highest card in the run. King-high beats queen-high, and the five-high steel wheel is the lowest of them. If both players have the same run — which means it is entirely on the board — the pot is split, because suits never break a tie in Texas Hold'em. A royal flush cannot be beaten at all; two of them can only exist when the board is the royal flush, at which point everyone chops.
This is the rarest showdown most home games will ever produce, and it is the one that will be recalled wrongly a month later. If you run the game in a room on PokerChip.live, the pot and the stacks are recorded as the hand happens, so the story keeps its numbers.
FAQ
01
Yes. A straight flush is the second-strongest hand and four of a kind the third, so the straight flush wins every time.
02
A straight flush and a royal flush. That is the complete list — nothing else in the deck beats quads.
03
No. Even the lowest straight flush, 5-4-3-2-A of one suit, beats four aces. Hand classes are absolute.
04
Only five suited cards in a row — a straight flush, or its highest form, the royal flush.
05
About once in 3,591 hands in Texas Hold'em, counting the best five cards out of seven. Four of a kind is roughly six times more common at once in 595.
06
The one with the higher top card. If the runs are identical, the pot is split — suits do not break ties in Hold'em.
07
Yes, on any board that does not contain three suited cards in sequence. That is most boards, which is why quads usually play as an unbeatable hand.
08
Yes — it is the ace-high one. That is why the list of hands beating four of a kind can be stated as a single idea rather than two.
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